


goodbye for now

by destinykw



Series: shitty horoscopes [1]
Category: Super Junior
Genre: Angst, Death, tw // december 18, tw // kyuhyun's car accident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:00:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25235080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinykw/pseuds/destinykw
Summary: Kyuhyun should be at his mandatory government-assigned day job recording audio books.The Super Junior hyungs should be at their various individual schedules on their variety shows.All of these other members of SMTown should be going about with their lives and careers, not all cloistered in here to mourn.Unfortunately, you don't get to pick when to say goodbye.
Series: shitty horoscopes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828138
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15





	goodbye for now

**Author's Note:**

> inspiration for these shorts come from the wonderful amrit (aka musterni). click on the star sign below to see more of her amazing work!

* * *

[**_book iii: petty existential crises - aquarius_ **](http://www.amritbrarillustration.com/book-iii#e-11)

_you can put all the flowers in your mouth that you fucking want_   
_but dying is dying and rot is rot_

* * *

The whole funeral is an entire out-of-body experience. There are far too many colorful flower arrangements around and too many all-black outfits meant for mourning and not for the stage. The sounds of crying and sniffling seems to follow Kyuhyun wherever he goes in this building, and the presence of the media certainly doesn’t help his negative mood. The murmur of hushed conversations serves to soothe Kyuhyun one minute only to aggravate him the next minute. 

The only occasions that would warrant this many SM artists gathering together are during the annual Halloween parties and SMTown concerts, both of which are happy things. Consequently, it’s absolutely baffling that they are instead gathered here today to grieve. 

It’s completely abnormal. None of them should be here. 

Kyuhyun should be at his mandatory government-assigned day job recording audio books.   
The Super Junior hyungs should be at their various individual schedules on their variety shows.   
All of these other members of SMTown should be going about with their lives and careers, not all cloistered in here to mourn.

Most obviously, Jonghyun shouldn’t be in a coffin. 

Hell, Jonghyun shouldn’t be dead.   
He’s only twenty-seven.   
He _was_ only twenty-seven. 

* * *

Kyuhyun paces around the funeral home, restless, searching for every opportunity possible to occupy himself and make himself useful. It’s times like these when he just needs to Do Something and Not Think. He keeps a stiff upper lip as he walks by the cameras to wrap his arms around Eunhyuk, who is currently trying his best to hold back the next wave of ugly grief-induced sobbing from taking hold. Kyuhyun shields Eunhyuk from prying eyes as he guides him to where the rest of Super Junior is standing. 

It’s times like these that Kyuhyun is grateful that he’s able to swallow his tears and run on autopilot. At least he doesn’t have to worry about netizens talking about him losing his dignity – whatever the _fuck_ that’s supposed to be.

He’s tired. They’re all tired. Tired of being under constant scrutiny. Tired of having to pretend that everything will be okay. Tired of being constantly reminded that Jonghyun left all of them, SHINee especially, with a gaping bleeding hole in their hearts. 

Super Junior already has way too much experience with tragedy and death as a team.   
In their rookie years, they had to pull themselves together and support one another when Donghae’s father passed, and adjust to the painful aftermath of Heechul’s car accident. (Hell, they’re still adjusting, years after the fact.) 

Then there was that other car accident that almost killed Kyuhyun. That was a time. In some shittier alternate universe, the rest of Super Junior would have bonded over Kyuhyun’s death in 2007 barely a year after he joined the group. 

They’ve had to support Leeteuk through the the triple death of his grandparents and father – it's honestly terrifying how much they’ve bonded over grief. Super Junior may have originally been put together as a project group, but somehow over the years this ragtag bunch of boys grew to become each other’s ride-or-dies. 

* * *

Sometimes you find yourself morbidly imagining what your funeral would be like.   
How many people would be there? How hard would they cry? What would they say about you and your life? Who would send flowers? 

This hits too close to home for the maknae main vocalist. Kyuhyun has already spent way too much of his life going down this morbid train of thought. Turns out that when you’re mute, bedridden, and stuck in the hospital for months, your mind goes to dark places. It’s been a full decade since The Car Accident™, and Kyuhyun can’t help but feel that Death is mocking him today, chuckling that “This could’ve been you.” 

With every funeral he attends, Kyuhyun remembers that unfortunate late night in the spring of 2007. He vividly recalls how relieved he was after a long, hectic day of schedules, and how eager he was to return to the dorm to shower and sleep. He remembers listening to music with his earbuds in and his eyes closed, hearing an ominous crashing sound, and ending up on the pavement (many meters away from the car, he later found out) staring up at the black night sky. 

Movies and books say that your life flashes before your eyes when you’re dying, but Kyuhyun never would have expected for that cliché to actually be true. He saw his childhood with Ahra and his parents, his carefree high school days, his brief yet hellish training period, his debut, Super Junior’s first win together. Memories of everything he had ever done ran through his mind, and Kyuhyun felt as though he could have just watched that for eternity before he was suddenly aware of a familiar hand clutching onto his hand. 

Bless Lee Hyukjae for being his literal anchor to the physical world. It felt like they had prayed together for eons before Kyuhyun faded into unconsciousness and woke up in the hospital days later, with a long road to recovery ahead of him. 

* * *

As he listens to people speak about Jonghyun, his life, and his legacy, Kyuhyun finds himself wondering what Jonghyun’s last thoughts were. Kyuhyun remembers desperately wanting to cling to life in 2007, begging to God that it was too early for him, that he wasn’t ready to leave this world and everyone behind. 

What are the last thoughts of someone who knows he has almost everything, but still can’t explain why it feels like parts of him are missing? 

All the speeches are starting to blur together. _You loved him, I loved him, we all loved him. He knew all this, but it didn’t change the outcome that we’re staring at_. Kyuhyun exhales a tired sigh which prompts Donghae to reach over and hold his hand, his thumb gently rubbing circles onto Kyuhyun’s. It’s a small gesture of comfort, and Kyuhyun is grateful for it. 

* * *

After a draining day of grieving and dealing with media, Kyuhyun exhales in relief as he reenters the dorm. It’s weird, calling it the dorm. Nobody in Super Junior lives here anymore. 

He toes off his shoes at the entrance, shoves on slippers, shrugs off his winter coat, and shuffles over to the fridge. Kyuhyun grabs a bottle of soju from the door and a soju glass from the kitchen cabinet before making his way back to the living room. 

He sets the bottle and glass on the coffee table before shrugging off his black suit jacket, throwing it haphazardly onto the couch, and sinking down to sit cross-legged on the floor. The soju bottle is opened with a satisfying metallic clack, and Kyuhyun pours out his first glass. 

“Cheers, Jonghyun-ah,” he murmurs bitterly, before downing the glass in one go. It burns a bit going down and leaves his mouth with a slightly sweet aftertaste (as good soju should). Kyuhyun finds himself overwhelmed with a wave of frustration as he pours out another glass and downs it. 

By the time the second shot settles, Kyuhyun is well aware that the anger that had been festering in his chest all day is finally making its much delayed appearance. He successfully managed to swallow his tears all day at the funeral home, but he now has no reason to continue doing so in the safety and privacy of his own home. 

So Kyuhyun cries. He cries big, fat, angry tears of betrayal that leak from his eyes and trail down his cheeks. He covers his face with his hands, gasping for air, his entire body trembling as he rests his elbows on his legs and finally lets go. 

If only he had checked in on Jonghyun more often. If only, if only, if only. 

_How could you leave us all alone like this?_

Kyuhyun bitterly scrolls through the celebrity news of the day, his breath still uneven from crying, masochistically trying to see how the media is trying to spin this and how netizens are reacting. He reads and reads, but he processes nothing. 

The more he reads, the more numb he feels. It’s all just blocks of text that feel void of meaning. Empty words and platitudes; expected condolences and related niceties. 

Kyuhyun knows it’s not fair to blame them for the emotional dagger that Jonghyun’s embedded in his chest. This is the reality that Kyuhyun knows he must accept – the one where Jonghyun left them much too soon. The older he gets, the more cognizant Kyuhyun becomes of how unfair the world is. Especially the world of entertainment. 

Today was filled with so many flowers that Jonghyun would never see, would never smell, would never touch. At the end of the day, flowers are just flowers. And death is just death: inevitable and absolute. 

Life will continue marching on as it pleases without Jonghyun, and so Kyuhyun decides to be a responsible adult for once and drinks only half of the soju bottle before heading off to bed to rest up for another day of work.


End file.
